


Panic

by pan_ismyhomeboy



Series: Polyamorous Avocados at Law [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied blood/violence, Kink Meme, Multi, OT3, Panic Attacks, Polyamory, season one spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pan_ismyhomeboy/pseuds/pan_ismyhomeboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy and Matt help Karen through a panic attack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panic

Everything is fine until it's not. Isn't that how it always goes?  
  
One moment Karen is laughing and watching Foggy do battle again with their fax machine, about to suggest the radical notion that they try to find a manual on the internet instead of just hurling curses at it, and the next moment—   
  
_Something is wrong._    
  
Something is wrong and she  _knows_  this has to be true because every instinct is telling her to run and hide and that something terrible is about to happen.  _Calm down_ , she tries to think,  _it's okay, there's nothing wrong here,_  but dread twists through her stomach anyway and she seriously regrets eating anything that morning.   
  
_Not again_ , and that thought is enough to send her anxiety even further through the roof,  _oh God, not again._  
  
"Karen?" Matt's asking, but his voice sounds far away and Karen can't really hear it over the sudden pounding in her ears.   
  
"Hi," she says with a pale smile, "sorry I, I must have zoned out there, what's..."  
  
Now Foggy's frowning at her too and she  _knows_  she doesn't have this under control, that they're both staring at her (well, paying close attention to her) and she opens her mouth to reassure them or excuse herself or  _something_ , but then she's dropped her mug of coffee all over the floor and every single stimulus in the room is a mark of something trying to kill her and she's absolutely goddamned sure her heart's going to explode if she doesn't calm down. She  _wants_  to say, "It's okay, this happened to me right after that thing I'm not telling either of you about and has actually been happening a lot but if you just let me go cry in a corner for an hour I'm pretty sure I'll be okay?"  
  
What actually comes out though, weakly, through a sudden rush of tears: "There's no air."  
  
Matt's there when her legs go out, both arms under hers and gently helping her to a chair before she completely collapses. Foggy calls out in concern and she can see him move to her side, see his lips move as he says something to Matt. She hears the words come out of his mouth, understands them, but can  _feel_  her memory click off like a camera all out of charge. Things are happening around her but she's not processing it, just trying to curl into a ball and cry quietly until everything stops and the world ends—  
  
_the gun goes off in her hand once and twice and again and again and there's so much red just like there was with daniel and she'll never be able to clear her name or her conscience of this death, not when she meant to, not when she aimed, not when she shot so many times and_  
  
—a pair of hands pulls back her hair and another puts a trashcan in front of her vision and she loses her entire breakfast. For a moment the repulsive experience of vomiting cuts through the panic and she tries to speak. But her stomach isn't done rebelling quite yet and she heaves again, sobbing as something cold and damp presses against the back of her neck.  
  
"It's okay," Foggy keeps saying over and over. She opens her eyes and and stares at the remains of her bagel and coffee, feels reaching out to clasp his hands around one of hers, kneeling at her side.  
  
"Breathe, Karen," Matt says gently.  
  
Karen tries, honest she does, but the taste of bile is sour on her tongue and she gags. "I can't, there's not, there's not any—"  
  
"Yes there  _is_ ," says Foggy's voice this time, and she feels her hair twisted and quickly tied before those hands settle on her shoulder. The cold thing — the washcloth — pressed against the back of her bare neck is helping her focus. "There's air all around you, I promise. Matt and I aren't using it all, are we buddy?"  
  
"We're definitely not," Matt confirms. He's touching the underside of her arm, thumb finding a certain point above her wrist and stroking firmly. The nausea starts to subside after a few moments. "Take a deep breath for us, okay? Here." He leans in, completely ignoring the trashcan full of vomit ( _who's going to clean that up?_  she wonders distantly,  _who gets stuck with janitor duty in a three-person office?_ ) and takes her other hand, pressing it against his chest. "Breathe with me. You're going to be okay."  
  
"Here, we'll breathe together," Foggy says, and it occurs to her suddenly how worried they both sound. "Deeeep breaths, sloooow breaths. Find your happy place. Fields of sunflowers or whatever. Do you like sunflowers, Karen?"  
  
"Not so much chatter," Matt murmurs from his spot on the floor when Karen doesn't respond.  
  
"Sorry," Foggy says sheepishly. The hands on her shoulders squeeze and Karen thinks she'd like to disappear in a bear hug right about now.   
  
She manages a breath and Foggy makes an encouraging sound, so she tries for another. In and out, one at a time, and her fingers bunch in Matt's shirt for anything to hold onto. He's still stroking her other arm and that touch coupled with the cold washcloth at her neck settles her roiling stomach for the moment.  
  
"Matt," she tries to say, but her voice sounds weak even to her.  
  
"I'm here," he says, "we both are."  
  
Tears overwhelm her again and she falls forward to clutch at Matt. Someone — Foggy probably, because Matt's busy with getting an armful of Karen safely to the ground — moves the trashcan out of the way. Matt sits with Karen's head in his lap and Foggy is the one kneeling at her side now, holding her hand and trying to smile reassuringly.  
  
"You are totally okay, Karen. You're in our office behind a locked door with two gorgeous and studly men ready to chase off anything that wants to mess with you. Totally safe, I promise. In fact—"  
  
"Don't overwhelm her," Matt warns, and Karen feels Foggy's hand tense around hers.  
  
"It's fine," she manages, and Foggy's hand relaxes. "It's, I'm, yeah."  
  
"Yeah," Foggy says softly. "Sorry. Talking always gets me through one of these things."  
  
"I don't know—" Her breath hitches and she has to concentrate to get air in her lungs again. Matt and Foggy are too close and too far away all at once. "—don't know how to, how, I've always been alone when this—"  
  
Matt undoes Foggy's hastily-made ponytail in Karen's hair and Foggy slips off her shoes. The world swims and she closes her eyes. Everything's too bright, too loud, and there are fingers in her hair and someone muttering a quick apology as her waistband comes undone to give her more room to breathe.  
  
"Christ, I can count every freckle on her face, is she supposed to be this pale?"  
  
"Give her time. Here, help me put her feet up. Karen, you still here?" She must have nodded because then Matt says, "Good. Keep breathing. The symptoms might spike worse in the first twenty minutes or so, so just hang tight. We aren't going anywhere."  
  
_Worse?_  Karen thinks with distress as Foggy makes a sound of protest. "God, don't tell her that, who died and made you an expert on panic attacks?"  
  
"I just want her to be prepared." His voice drops and Karen can barely make out his words now. "Her pulse is jumping again."  
  
"No shit, Sherlock, you just told her it's getting  _worse_."  
  
Karen lets out a wheezy, startled laugh. The tiny part of her that's still conscious, watching her sympathetic nervous system freak the fuck out for no good reason, thinks it's  _just like them_  to be bickering when she all but  _swooned_  in the middle of their office. She laughs again and there's a hysterical edge to it. "Oh shit, you guys, I'm dying."  
  
"You are  _not_ ," Foggy says hotly, and one of Matt's hands briefly leaves Karen to touch Foggy's arm. Foggy doesn't sound like the gesture relaxes him much. "You're fine, you're going to be fine. Look at you being fine, you got this Karen."  
  
"Breathe," Matt says firmly. "Count backwards from ten with me. Can you do that?"  
  
The buzzing in her head is getting louder and her brain is doing that thing again where she's pretty sure nothing she's seeing or hearing is going into her memory banks. She has a piece of herself safe and tucked away inside her head, telling her that Matt and Foggy are here and helping, that she really just needs to relax, that nothing will  _happen_ , and that piece is getting more frantic the longer her body refuses to listen to her. She lifts a shaking hand to her face and her arm feels heavy and partially numb, like it only nominally belongs to her.  
  
"I think I'm going to throw up again," she says, and they turn her on her side just in time.

Things go a little pear-shaped after that. Despite all their assurances to the contrary, Matt and Foggy can’t convince her panicked mind that she isn’t running out of air. One of them starts rubbing her back while the other takes the washcloth at her neck and uses it to wipe her mouth and chin clean. She feels disgusting on so many levels, with sour breath and snot running down her nose and curled up here on the floor like a child, not like an adult who can actually deal with reality. Other people have had worse, other people have  _done_  worse, what did she expect, that things were going to be sunshine and daisies just because they locked Fisk away, that she’d just be able to pretend everything was normal?  
  
She loses time, she thinks, because everything is a ball of misery and that little part of herself she's trying to hold onto apparently throws up its hands and storms out for a drink. She's suddenly,  _violently_  aware of being completely alone in her body, disconnected from Matt and Foggy even though they're both touching and talking to her. She grabs a hand — she doesn't know whose and she doesn't care — and clings on as tightly as she can.  
  
All Karen can sob out, over and over, is, "It's my fault. It's my  _fault_."  
  
She realizes, belatedly, how odd this must look to anyone unlucky enough to walk in their door. Two grown men sitting on the floor, one of whom is coaxing her up into his lap, and her, a grown woman crying her eyes out like the world is actually ending. It's a terrible feedback loop, the shame building on the anxiety and the anxiety fueling the panic. "Should've stayed home," she says miserably as she sits up and struggles for a decent breath. There's a tissue at her face and she takes it with trembling fingers.  
  
"I'm really, really glad you didn't," Foggy tells her. His face swims into focus and he looks so worried as he watches her. "Would've been awful to deal with this on your own."  
  
"Not my first." She takes a shuddering breath and blows her nose, feeling gross. But the deep breath helped and she takes another.  
  
"Yeah, I figured. I'm sorry, buddy."  
  
"No, I'm sorry, this is totally unprofessional, and—" She hiccoughs and fresh tears hit her eyes. "I'm sorry."  
  
Matt just shakes his head and presses a kiss to her hair. "Let's worry about professionalism after we get you through this, okay?"  
  
She lets Matt draw her close so she can feel his chest expand and contract with each breath. Karen closes her eyes and wraps her arms around him tightly. And then there are arms around  _her_ , with Foggy pressing into her back so she can feel his breathing, too.  
  
"Everyone take a deep breath," Foggy suggests, and together the three of them do. Karen's is shaky and aches in the bottom of her lungs, but she's still breathing in tandem with them. Foggy's chin is on her shoulder and Matt's face is still somewhere around her hairline. They talk her through one lungful of air after another and somehow, even though she's partially squished between the two of them, she finally finds room to breathe.  
  
"There we go," Matt says softly when she manages her first full breath since the attack started. "There's our girl."  
  
She still feels a little sick to her stomach and her body feels exhausted and not quite hers, and she's still not totally convinced she's not about to die, but the air's back in the room and the passage of time at least seems not to be fucking with her.  
  
"Sorry." Her voice small and muffled by Matt's shirt.  
  
"Eh, we've seen worse," Foggy says, and there's a quick kiss to her neck. "I ever tell you about the time I puked on Matt's shoes at school?"  
  
Matt's laugh is a gentle rumble beneath her cheek. "You were such a mess back then."  
  
"I was a complete mess. I'd get all worked up about papers and just like, shut down, you know? Not work on them and totally bullshit the discussions in class, until literally the last week when suddenly reality came crashing back in and I got so fucking anxious—"  
  
"Those were the only nice shoes I had," Matt says with a heavy sigh.  
  
"All over his shoes, all over the floor, and then I curled up under my bed for good measure. Do you think this is funny, is that why you're smiling? C'mon, I know I saw a smile."  
  
Karen's breath still catches every so often but she  _is_  smiling now and the tears are beginning to dry. "Hard to imagine you guys back in school."  
  
"Matt was adorable and I was a mess. Hey, not to be a buzzkill but this position is kinda cramping my back. Can we do something else?”  
  
Which is how the three of them end up spooning on the floor of their office, Karen still pressed between the other two and listening to them breathe. This time she’s got her face buried in Foggy’s jacket while he soothingly rubs her back, telling her more stories about throwing up on Matt’s stuff (which was apparently a semi-common occurrence during grad school) and trying to tease out more smiles. And she can’t help herself but to grin a little because Foggy’s so happy and relieved when she does, like the only thing that matters in the world is getting her to feel better no matter how many embarrassing life stories he has to share. Matt is pressed up against her back, fingers twined with hers as they both wrap an arm around Foggy.  
  
“We definitely need to invest in an office futon,” Foggy declares. “Or just carpet the whole place with that memory foam mattress stuff.”  
  
“How about we just stash some pillows and blankets in the closet instead?” Matt asks with a smile.  
  
“Oh sure, shut down my hopes and dreams Murdock. Karen’ll back me up, right?”  
  
Karen shifts and the other two shift with her, keeping her warm and supported. Safe. “You don’t have to — to do all that, Matt, I’m fine. This won’t happen again.”  
  
There’s a brief moment of confusion when Matt and Foggy both go to stroke her hair at the same time. They link fingers and gently cushion her head against the floor instead. “It’s okay if it does. I’d rather you were taken care of than not.”  
  
Foggy nods emphatically in agreement with Matt. “We could all probably use like... regular Friday morning cuddle puddles anyway. Good for workplace morale.”  
  
“Thanks,” she says, and her eyes aren’t watering with panic this time. “I’d kiss you, but uh…”  
  
“Karen, I would totally kiss you back if you did because that’s how much I love you.”  
  
She gets a peppering of kisses on her neck and ears and cheeks, with overexaggerated smooching noises until she’s laughing, for real this time, and finally relaxes. She feels like shit though, strung out and dehydrated and in dire need of a shower and some Listerine. “I think I need to take the rest of the day. I just want to go home and sleep.”  
  
“I’ll come with you,” Matt immediately volunteers.  
  
“Me too. Who wants to work on a Friday anyway?” When Karen starts to protest that she’s fine, Foggy pulls back and gives her a look. “You know you’re in love with the two most stubborn guys in Hell’s Kitchen, right? We’ll all go home, hop in a real bed, order ridiculously greasy takeout and narrate cartoons to Matt.”  
  
“I like cartoons,” Matt says with a grin.  
  
Karen wipes her eyes and smiles.  
  
…  
  
They fuss over her more than is probably necessary but she lets them— partially because they both seemed so worried about her before, and partially because it just feels good. She scrubs herself clean in the shower while Foggy perches on the bathroom counter cracking jokes and Matt orders them all pizza. Karen brushes her teeth and finally slips into her robe to fall into bed, absolutely exhausted.  
  
“I love you,” Matt says quietly, after the pizza’s been dealt with and Foggy drifted off to sleep beside them. “We both do. And no matter what it is, we’ll always be here for you.”  
  
Karen finds his hand under the covers and rests her head on his shoulder. He doesn’t ask her about what she said earlier, about it all being her fault, and she doesn’t explain. Not yet, anyway. But she thinks he understands and that Foggy would too, if he weren’t curled up and snoring like her bed was the most natural place in the world for him to be.  
  
She loves them for that, more than she’ll ever be able to say.  
  
“I know you will,” she says quietly, and in the dark of the room she finally closes her eyes.


End file.
